Advit Foundation

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admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:50:48 +0000

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Occupational Health & Safety Training

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:41:59 +0000

Advit’s programme on ‘Occupational Health & Safety’ aims to educate and generate know how among industry workers about health and safety at work. The programme objective is to:

Organize interactive session on health and safety
Introduce health camps for basic check up

The challenge of the programme is to have regular training programmes where the workers get the information/education about health and occupational safety and become responsible. The programme is holistic in nature with the following curricula:

Why care about health
Existing health problems
Protection at one’s own level
Medical care

Preventive Health

Alarming symptoms

PPE, nutrition, sleep, cleanliness, hygiene

Health camp

Occupational Health and Safety Capacity Building Programme for Carpet Weavers

Advit Foundation, with support from Goodweave India initiated a project on health and safety for workers involved in the Carpet weaving industries of Panipat. The health-safety training sessions & health camps were conduct at 13 supplier factories for the workers engaged in various processes of carpet weaving. More than 1000 workers have already benefitted from this project.

Safe Chemical Handling Training

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:36:57 +0000

Advit strives to educate industry workers towards safe and appropriate working practices through its ‘Safe Chemical Handling Training’ programme. The training involves imparting of safe chemical handling practices to workers of industries which involve extensive use of chemicals in their production process, for eg. apparel industries, and expects to ensure that the supplier is able to meet the requirements and comply with the guidelines of the procurer.

The objectives are to:

To promote safe chemical handling practices in an industry
To impart training on safe solutions for handling chemicals among the target groups

The target groups for the training are all those working with chemicals – shop floor workers, store in-charge, housekeeping staff and management staff responsible for buying and disposal of chemicals.

Hands-on Workshops

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:35:15 +0000

Advit organizes hands-on workshops on varied topics related to environment and resource conservation. By way of these workshops, children learn from a very early age how their lifestyle and activities impact the environment and how they can turn it into a positive impact by conserving resources. These workshops are focused mainly on children; however, they are equally enjoyed by adults as well.

Some of the workshops are as listed below:

Natural holi colour making
Newspaper bag making
Puppet making from waste material
Handmade/ recycled paper making
Composting/vermicomposting
Solar cooking
Making a solar cooker model
Making a water harvesting model
Calculating carbon footprint
Energy auditing
Planting a sapling

Other than these workshops, we also organize environment movie screenings, musical programmes, theatre workshops, puppet shows, games and quizzes with an environment theme.

Community Ecotours/ Environment Events

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:30:53 +0000

Community ecotours are an initiative of Advit, organized with an objective of promoting sustainability and conservation of natural resources. This includes trips to rural areas, environment sustainable farms, energy efficient buildings, an introduction to renewable energy applications, zero waste industries, and industries manufacturing products from waste and the like.

Advit specializes in organizing environment events and initiatives. The Green Gala – Advit’s annual festival – brings together communities, corporates and civil society organizations for celebrating a common cause – Environment. It aims to create an increased awareness of a Carbon neutral lifestyle to the Gurgaon populace. In November 2011, Advit organized a ‘solar’ rock music concert. The New York based band Solar Punch were invited to India to perform at multiple locations in Delhi-NCR. At two of the major events, the famous Indian rock band Parikrama also performed with Solar Punch. Advit has organized environment day events for various Corporate companies.

Waste Management – Vermicomposting

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:28:38 +0000

Solid wastes generated from kitchen waste and agricultural activities include vegetable scappings, left over food, crop residues, animal excreta etc. need special attention for disposal. The use of these wastes after bioprocessing can supply nutrients to vegetative plants and also improve soil physical chemical and biological conditions and its fertility. The wastes need to be treated before its addition to soil. This is due to presence of toxic pollutants or pathogenic microorganisms.

Earthworms as a major soil fauna helps in modulating the physicochemical properties of the soil. During the process of vermicomposting earthworms maintain aerobic conditions in the organic wastes by proper mixing and microbial decomposition of the substrate in the intestine of earthworm, converts the organic wastes into worm biomass and excretion of casts which are vermicompost (Benitez et al., 1999). The earthworms also enhance the soil microbial activity by improving the environment for the microbe.

Advit Foundation organizes training and implementation of vermicompost plants as entrepreneur models for the villagers using the agricultural waste. Advit also facilitates setting up of compost and vermicomopost pits in urban institutions/schools for resource utilization and awareness.

Vermicomposting plants have been set-up by Advit at:

Shikshantar School, Gurgaon
Unitech Club Patio I, Gurgaon
Wazirabad Village, Gurgaon
Daulatabad Village, Gurgaon
RGREP, Gurgaon

At Shikshantar school, the vermicompost pits were set up with children’s involvement. At Patio Clubs, the gardeners were trained to maintain the pit and ensure generation of compost.

C-offsetting Plantation & Phytoremediation

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:26:36 +0000

Industrial and vehicular emissions are a major cause of concern from the perspective of global warming and climate change. Advit, with Public-Private-Community Partnership, undertakes Carbon offsetting plantation at community land to counter CO2 emissions and contribute to a greener and sustainable planet.

Planting of trees sequesters CO2 through photosynthesis thereby contributing to the net reduction in global carbon thereby allowing for the creation of carbon credits. Tree plantations not only have immense climate benefits but also socio-economic and environmental benefits. Phytoremediation consists of mitigating pollutant concentrations in contaminated soils, water, or air, with plants.

Trees act as barrier for wind, provide cooling effect, shade to cattle, stabilize soil and prevent erosion; they improve water quality by slowing and filtering rain water, as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds etc. In addition, they add aesthetic beauty to the environment. Also, the outputs of trees can be an income generating and livelihood opportunity for the poor.

Given these benefits, Advit Foundation has selected some of native species such as Banyan Tree, Tamarind, Soap Nut, Pongamia, Mango etc for undertaking avenue and group plantations in collaborations with individual landowners and institutions.

Plantation projects undertaken by Advit:

Plantation of Green Belt Under Gurgaon Metro Track
Plantation at Community Land in Village Meoka, Gurgaon
Plantation at RGREP, Gurgaon

Rain Water Harvesting

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:24:51 +0000

Rain Water harvesting is a technology used to collect, convey and store rain from relatively clean surfaces such as a roof, land surface or rock catchment for later use. This water, that would otherwise have gone down the drainage system, into the ground or been lost to the atmosphere via evaporation, is recharged and reused. To avoid depletion of ground water level, the ground water bodies must be recharged in whichever way possible.

Advit offers easy and economic water harvesting services. Advit provides:

Information on water harvesting
Feasibility study for implementing water harvesting model
Design and implementation of Urban roof-top water harvesting systems & check dams

Rain Water Harvesting Project Implemented at Unitech Patio Clubs, Gurgaon

Advit has implemented Rain Water Harvesting structures at Unitech Clubs – Patio I & II in South City, Gurgaon. Three structures have been constructed – two at Patio I and one at Patio II, with a total catchment area of 11,978 sq.m and a potential to harvest 67,23,810 litres of rainwater every year.

Interested in a rain water harvesting system for your residential or commercial property? CONTACT US today to schedule a free estimate

Check Dams

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:23:24 +0000

The goal of this initiative is the development of a model to maintain sustainable supplies of ground/surface water for rural communities. The overall purpose is to plan, develop and maintain water resources in the water impoverished areas to support the growth and well being of the communities and respond to the growing need of water for drinking, agriculture, industrial and general improvement of living conditions.

Water Conservation Project in Villages of Rajasthan

Awarded best “Beyond The Fence” water conservation project by CII in 2009.

IKEA, as part of the social and environmental responsibility, decided to initiate this project as a few of their suppliers were based in this water impoverished state of Rajasthan. IKEA hired the services of Advit Foundation to conduct a detailed study and design the program.

The initiative was designed to ensure that all the IKEA suppliers in Rajasthan should adopt the best possible practices while utilizing the local resources including water and ensure sustainable supplies of water and other natural resources. The communities involved in the production of the supplies to IKEA participated in the program to improve the environment in and around their villages.

The development objectives of IKEA water project were:

To identify technologies and management approaches to help achieve sustainable groundwater recharge systems in and around the supplier factories and adopted villages;
To aggressively promote solutions for sustainable groundwater recharge among the target groups

Energy Efficiency and Carbon Reduction

admin — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 05:21:12 +0000

Advit works towards achieving energy efficiency and minimizing carbon emissions – at indoor work environment, industry process and travel – by process improvement, adopting clean technologies like solar installations along with initiating Carbon offsetting plantation. We help corporates and individuals reduce CO2 in a way that delivers commercial, personal and environmental benefit.

We provide support to:

Get a walk through audit to assess baseline CO2 emissions
Identify cost effective ways to reduce CO2
Identify alternative installations for Carbon offsetting – Renewable energy options
Undertake carbon offsetting plantation

Investment Grade Energy Audits

Advit Foundation designs and implements investment grade energy audits for industries, institutions and corporate entities. Two types of approaches are adopted:

Adoption of improved operation and maintenance measures to reduce the resource consumption by 10-20%.
Conduct detailed energy and water audits to measure the consumptions and find out the problem areas. Approximately 30-40% reduction in electricity and water use can be achieved through this approach.

Energy Efficiency in Apparel Industry – Preparation of Knowledge Guide

Advit Foundation in partnership with GreenStratos Consulting Pvt. Ltd. and with support from GTZ concluded a project on “Energy Efficiency & Carbon Responsible Practices in Indian Apparel Industries”, to help industries cope with the challenge of the prevalent and future environment issues. The aim was building knowledge and creating awareness amongst apparel Industries. The project involved:

Organizing and conducting knowledge dissemination workshops for industrial clusters
Documenting observations and conclusions of the study into a knowledge guide for industries to be energy efficient & carbon responsible

Interactive Workshops and Talk Sessions

Advit Foundation, in order to raise awareness among the community on solutions for climate change and its mitigation, organizes brief interactive workshops and talk sessions for all sections of the community on energy efficiency and conservation. We have organized such sessions for students and for corporates like NDPL, Cairn Energy India. Another recently initiated project, supported by PCRA, focuses on fuel conservation – why there is a pressing need to conserve fuel and how we can contribute towards making our city a better place to live.

Interested in conducting an energy audit for your industry, institution or company facility? Or want to organize an awareness session on energy efficiency in your company? CONTACT US to get more details.